


came back crooked

by poppyseedheart



Category: Sugar Pine 7 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 13:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12818286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppyseedheart/pseuds/poppyseedheart
Summary: “Do you know how I know I’m not him anymore?” Parker asks.Cib frowns. Something more serious flickers behind his eyes. “How?”Parker sighs, sits down against the wall. And yeah, he knows what kinds of things have touched that wall, he just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything anymore, and that’s the problem. “I know I’m not him,” he says slowly, “because he was in love with you.”





	came back crooked

**Author's Note:**

> It's week 4 of nano and I'm neglecting my novel to bring you this hard and fast exploration of an au where canon diverges and Parker comes back soulless. Thanks to Katy for listening to me yell about this at her.
> 
> Unbeta'd & as such all mistakes are mine.
> 
> Enjoy!

Parker offers to cook dinner. It’s the first thing he does after he says hello to all of them, apparently unperturbed by the fact that they’ve broken into his house. James thinks that’s fair, honestly, considering how many times it’s happened before. It just never happened quite like this.

When Parker greeted them, his smile was…off, in a way James couldn’t and still can’t seem to place. “Hey boys,” Parker had said, casual as ever. A shiver ran down James’ spine.

People don’t come back from the grave. That doesn’t happen.

As soon as Parker gets into the kitchen, everyone else breaks out into hushed whispers. “Dude,” says Steven, eyes round and wide as dinner plates, “this isn’t happening, right? Pinch me, fucking pinch me, come on, pinch- _ow!_ ”

James rolls his eyes. “Dude,” he intones, “I pinched you, now can we figure out how to turn this right side up from where it’s inside out and ass backwards?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asks Jeremy, in a tone that implies he knows exactly what it means. His countenance is dark, stormy. Typical Jeremy, but alarm bells are still going off in James’ head. He trusts his instincts—years of pretending to be a water warrior mean that he honed those pretty well, all things considered—and all of his instincts are telling him that something is really, really wrong.

“It means nothing,” says Steven quickly. “Nothing at all. James never means anything when he talks. But seriously, can we talk about Parker? How did he even-” he breaks off helplessly, gesturing in a way that must be meant to imply _rise from his burial spot fully alive and smiling and still with bad fashion._

“I don’t know any more than you do.” Jeremy is still wearing his goddamn sunglasses, but James still sees it when his expression goes accusatory. “Maybe we should ask the guy that murdered him in the first place.”

They all turn to look at Cib.

Cib waves meekly. “We all killed Parker,” he says, “not just me, so. Checkmate, boys. Put _that_ in your knees and break it.” Despite his glib words, his eyes are darting back and forth quickly between the faces watching him and the door to the kitchen. James is watching him, trying to figure out what they should do next, when glass breaks in the other room, and that’s why he catches Cib’s very real flinch.

“I’ll go see what happened,” says James, already standing up, and no one moves to stop him, so he goes.

Parker is kneeling down and picking up the pieces of a measuring glass with his bare hands. Blood mingles with water on the tiled floor. “My bad,” Parker is saying, having noticed the shadow James is casting across the mess. He lifts up his bleeding hands ruefully. “Still clumsy.”

“Um,” says James. “Uh, are you okay?”

Parker shrugs, depositing the broken glass in the trash can. “Yeah, I don’t really sweat the small stuff as much now that I’m dead.”

“Now that you’re dead?” asks James. He feels faint, not that he’d ever admit it.

“That’s what I said,” answers Parker, turning back to where he was chopping a shallot. “Are you just gonna stand there,” he asks absently, back still to James, “or are you gonna help?”

James stumbles to grab a knife and cutting board and get started on the celery.

/

New Parker and Autumn seem to get along.

If Steven thinks about it, it’s the least surprising thing that could’ve happened considering the situation.

“I was possessed,” Autumn is saying, one eye on her laptop as she distractedly recounts the story to Parker. “There was this, like, fire. And a pentagram. And screaming, apparently, but I don’t remember any of it. I dunno, it was weird.”

Parker frowns. “That was probably my bad, huh?” For someone who doesn’t appear to have feelings anymore, he sounds genuinely contrite.

“Eh,” says Autumn, shrugging, “it’s fine.”

Steven is still sitting in the corner of the room pretending to brainstorm new bits. It’s been fun and all chronicling Autumn’s apparent descent into hell, but this is an entirely new beast. He’s been borderline panicked all day, ever since James had the bright idea to invite Parker to the office like nothing happened.

“It just happened!” James had said. He sounded young. “What, was I gonna tell him no?”

“You should’ve!” Steven had hissed back, but it was no use. Parker is in the office now, and it isn’t like nothing had changed. It’s like everything had changed, and they’re playing house in the hopes of keeping a lid on the situation.

Distraction comes, as it so often does, in the form of Cib arriving two hours late to work. He glances at Parker and then right over him, ignoring the way he’s perched on Autumn’s desk, legs swinging. “Steeeeeve,” he sing-songs, “give me some of that sweet post-vape breath.”

“Please don’t kiss me,” Steve says flatly.

It’s no use. Cib does anyway. As soon as it happens, Steven can feel the weight of Parker’s gaze on them, watching, making him feel hot and uncomfortable. He pushes Cib away more seriously than usual.

Cib, faux-wounded, pouts, but he doesn’t try again.

Parker doesn’t say anything at all.

/

It’s Cib, in the end, that asks. “So what’s it like?”

Parker looks at him blankly. He’s not going to pretend to know how Cib’s brain works. “What’s what like?” They’re the only two in the office, and Parker almost wishes that someone else were here. Jeremy, maybe, though he’s long since left to attend to more grisly business. He, at least, seemed to get it.

“Being dead,” answers Cib, blithe as ever, but his eyes are clear and sharp. He wants to know.

It’s both simpler and more complicated than any of them realize, Parker thinks. He didn’t wake up gasping for breath. It wasn’t anything that dramatic. He just was, and then he wasn’t. He isn’t. 

“I’m not the same as I was,” he chooses to say. It’s tiring to try to keep up with everything, both from before he died and after. 

“Well of course not,” says Cib, fast, “you full on french kissed the underground soul pound. Bow chicka _wowza_ , you know what I mean? Every man’s bound to have some penis envy after that.”

He always does that, like if he talks fast enough or nonsensically enough then no one can hold him accountable for anything, but Parker’s tired. He’s so tired. “Do you know how I know I’m not him anymore?” he asks.

Cib frowns. Something more serious flickers behind his eyes. “How?”

Parker sighs, sits down against the wall. And yeah, he knows what kinds of things have touched that wall, he just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything anymore, and that’s the problem. “I know I’m not him,” he says slowly, “because he was in love with you.”

 _And then you killed him_ goes unsaid, but it echoes so goddamn loudly in the room around them. Like some kind of curse, Parker remembers the day he died in technicolor detail, remembers how stupid nervous he’d been and how stupid-full-stop he’d felt when Sami Jo had sat him down the day before and told him gently that it wasn’t her he was in love with. That maybe his crush wasn’t on Sami Jo at all.

Cib showed up furious, threw around some accusations, and bashed Parker’s head in, and Parker wishes that could’ve been the end of it with every fiber of his being. It’s not present tense love that’s killing him inside. It’s the memory of what he felt, lingering like a ghost.

“If I killed you, do you think you’d come back?”

Instead of running out the door at full speed, Cib sits next to Parker and hums consideringly. “You could try, if it would make you feel better.”

“It wouldn’t,” says Parker.

“Okay,” says Cib.

Parker shuts his eyes against the wave of frustration and confusion that crests over him then. The office is cold, but he doesn’t care much. The person he used to be head over heels for is sitting next to him now, shoulder bumping his own, and he wishes he didn’t care about that. This office should feel like home or it shouldn’t. This in between is getting out of hand. Maybe that’s what Parker deserves, though, stuck in this limbo the way that he has been.

Next to him, Cib starts to hum, and Parker sits there quietly with his fists clenched and silently begs him not to stop.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, you can come party with me on tumblr @teamokdynamite, and twitter @poppyseedheart if you're so inclined :) Idk that I'll come back to this verse, but this isn't my last hurrah in this fandom by any means, so stay tuned.


End file.
